Detective Comics #935 discussion (spoilers!)

[MajorHoy]

Also, just noticed: three weeks until #936?! Oh man that wait's gonna be rough.

June was a month with five Wednesdays.
Both Batman and Detective Comics are published "bimonthly", which means twice a month.

Really enjoyed this. Rebirth has turned Detective Comics into a Bat X-Men book -- and I mean that in the best way. I've wanted a new BATO for a long time now, but this is doing a great job of filing that void.

And I'm still trying to decide if this book is Batman Incorporated-lite or just Batman Incorporated-lame.

Dropped.

. . . this didn't keep my interest enough to justify $6 a month to me.

And I may be tempted to do the same.

. . . In all likelihood, I may end up trade waiting most of the Rebirth titles that I originally intended to buy.

I'm starting to wonder if that might be the best bet for most main DC and Marvel titles I still bother to buy these days... sometimes, so little seems to happen in an issue, and then you have to wait many weeks for the next little tidbit to be released. If modern writers are going to write for the tpb collections, maybe that's how I should buy them (and save some money in the meantime).
Don't know if it would be even worth tpb-waiting on this title, though.

. . . But of course, Tim's whole New 52 origin was kind of weird. Young Tim commits a crime and incurs the wrath of the Penguin, who seeks out revenge against the whole Drake family. So Tim's parents go into witness protection, while Tim is taken in by bachelor billionaire Bruce Wayne so he can, essentially, "fulfill his destiny" - go to college, become an Olympic athlete, start a high-tech company...

Yeah I think Tynion is ignoring the N52 origin, and hoping it will just go away. I think most fans support this course of action, and are okay with him not getting a retcon so long as everything written from now on isn't dependent on his N52 origin.

Didn't DC already ignore parts of Tim's Teen Titans #0 origin and re-write it for an issue of Secret Origins?

Then again, it seemed like they stole parts of Tim's pre-Flashpoint personality / backstory traits for Dick's revised New52 origin in Nightwing #0.

[Lhynn]

And I'm still trying to decide if this book is Batman Incorporated-lite or just Batman Incorporated-lame.

Its clearly neither. I am surprised to see some edginess in this forum tho, even if its misguided.

[JasonTodd428]

We are kinda getting that aren't we? Night of the Monster Men is the next epic and if Hugo is the villain of King's Batman as many suspect then that would seal it. I like King's work but Hurwitz was also an acclaimed writer before he got the Batman gig. Ofcourse time will be the final judge but right now King's first 2 issues were nothing to write home about and that's not me talking that's the general sentiment on comic forums. Among the three thousand or so people who voted on the week one books on this site Green Arrow led the charge by far with Superman and Batman neck and neck and that's just the first week. By the second week almost everyone was saying Tynion Tec was better than Batman. King's Batman is not generating excellent word of mouth imo, most of his supporters are saying "give him time" which I personally would if his book didn't launch with a line wide overhaul, I cant afford him time when there are other books I want to try out. Even his solicits have mediocre descriptions like "big evil approaching" or "true evil is here", "is Batman enough?" or characters who call themselves Gotham and Gotham Girl LOL who also happen to be the millionth Superman clones that will give us the billionth Batman vs Superman fight that we clearly need more of. When you are getting overshadowed by Percy and Tynion then you know there's a problem.

Hey, I respect that you like one book better than the other and that you have other books you'd rather try. I feel the same way way since there are so many really good books coming out of Rebirth. I also don't want to waste my time on a book I'm simply not interested in. There's nothing wrong with that. I just take issue with your assessment that King's Batman is on par with Hurwitz's Dark Knight. That was probably among the worst books to come out of the reboot frankly.

Night of the Monster Men is a crossover between Batman, Tec and Nightwing that Orlando is writing though so it's more like a Batman Eternal situation rather then a DotF one IMO. What I was getting at though is that King has a history of writing slow burning stories while Tynion always seems to be rushing to get to the outcome. King's writing has a lot of substance and makes you think. Tynion is more of a flash in the pan sort and his writing seems to lack substance to me.

I literally got nothing from reading his 'Tec Rebirth issue and the solicits for future issue have not grabbed me either. There was nothing compelling about the one issue that I read to keep me engaged and I'm a fan of most of the characters involved here. I'm just not letting the fact that DC has thrown fans of these characters a bone here and given them all to a writer who can at least give them decent characterization cloud my perspective like a lot of people online seem to be doing right now. Heck, I believe someone in thus very post mentioned the lack of actual plot in this issue but that they didn't mind it because ooooo Tim is more like his old self now. Frankly, I consider that to be a big problem if it continues to be the case as the story progresses.

I'm glad people are excited for this, really I am, I just think that once the honeymoon glow wears off on this and fans mellow out a bit things might look a bit different especially as more books come out and people's attentions shift around a bit. Let's see where this book stands once a story arc is completed.

[Caivu]

I'm only speaking for myself, but I don't mind the lack of plot here because as a team book, the focus should be on the characters, especially for the first arc. Plot in team-based stories is of secondary importance.

[Lhynn]

I'm glad people are excited for this, really I am, I just think that once the honeymoon glow wears off on this and fans mellow out a bit things might look a bit different especially as more books come out and people's attentions shift around a bit.

Pessimistic way to look at it. To me its more about defining the characters and team dynamics first, then getting down to the story, doing both at the same time can be good, but it usually leaves you with tons of out of character moments and overall an unsatisfying book, so let the man take a couple issues of this biweekly before jumping to conclusions. Its also a good approach because all these characters have been written poorly before this, so its something that needs to be established before we move forward.
If the characters merely stagnate and Tynion only offers us enjoyable biweekly stories then its still better than what we had, so i dont really see that much of a problem with it.

Im going to have to agree that king has done a great job with Grayson. but he is working with a single, well established character and the demans from the book are different. So if we are weighting who has done a better job so far according to what was expected, then Tec has been a more enjoyable read.

[Lhynn]

I'm only speaking for myself, but I don't mind the lack of plot here because as a team book, the focus should be on the characters, especially for the first arc. Plot in team-based stories is of secondary importance.

This, team dynamics are why people read team books.

[godisawesome]

I like this book, but I'm too cheap and the story's still too young for me to declare this book better than any other book in Rebirth. Right now, I'm mostly just thrilled to have a better written Tim Drake sequence than the entire New 52, but I can't tell if this book is good until the first arc is done and out the door; decompression, when done right, is a superior type of serialized storytelling, but it's also the easiest to mess up if your plot is shallow, mis-paced, or just not worth the audience's time.

Right now, this is the first arc of the book; setting up the status quo and the team's interactions is of utmost importance. But either the Colony is a major threat that will have a worthwhile climax and fight that serves as a proof of concept for the team, or they're probably an-also-ran antagonist that honestly wasn't needed. If Tynion makes it work and manages to get the cast handled well throughout, we've got a hit. But we can't call it until it's gone.

Plus, we've got to consider whether or not this book's current format really is a long term plan, or whether it should be. 'Tec should probably always stand apart from the solo Batman in someway, that can probably be agreed on. But is the plan to still have this exact team going 5 years from now, the way other teams (like Teen Tiatns) were in the New 52? Do they want to keep the concept as a Batman family book, but trade out the characters? Do they want to eventually make this a Streets of Gotham style book? Or is the only plan to "rehab" some of these characters and get them their own books later?

[Galerion]

I'm only speaking for myself, but I don't mind the lack of plot here because as a team book, the focus should be on the characters, especially for the first arc. Plot in team-based stories is of secondary importance.

It's funny that you say that because I personally feel that is also and especially the case for solo books. A solo that doesn't really go into it's main protagonist is not worth a damn. At least that's how I feel and which is why I generally prefer solos over team-based "big, epic and grandiose " stories.

It's good to hear that Detective seems to be going down the character-driven route since that is the better way to tell a story IMO. Im about to buy into this and my main motivation for it was Cassandra Cain but hearing this makes it even better.

[JasonTodd428]

Pessimistic way to look at it. To me its more about defining the characters and team dynamics first, then getting down to the story, doing both at the same time can be good, but it usually leaves you with tons of out of character moments and overall an unsatisfying book, so let the man take a couple issues of this biweekly before jumping to conclusions. Its also a good approach because all these characters have been written poorly before this, so its something that needs to be established before we move forward.
If the characters merely stagnate and Tynion only offers us enjoyable biweekly stories then its still better than what we had, so i dont really see that much of a problem with it.

I'm not being pessimistic just pragmatic. Time and time again people have gotten overly excited over various books but once the "newness" of them wears off they move on leaving only the really diehard fans still reading. I've seen it happen enough to know that it will likely happen with this book as well. It happens with them all to be honest. With this particular one I really feel like people are looking at it with rose colored glasses to a degree and that it's blinding them to flaws that they are pretty blatant about pointing out in King's book.

I think I've already made it clear that I'm not interested enough in this to even see if Tynion does eventually get to the plot but I will say that I'd rather see him trying to develop both the team dynamic and the plot at the same time instead of concentrating so much on just one aspect. Character dynamics are an important aspect of a team book sure but if I'm going to buy this twice a month I need a little bit more than that to keep me interested enough to keep reading.

I also disagree with you on the issue of even if the characters stagnate its okay so long as the story is good. In my opinion character stagnation is NEVER a good thing and it just brings a good story down. The thing I don't want to see happen is that Tynion gets so caught up in the team dynamics because that's what people are praising that he let's the overall plot of the arc suffer or that the plot here turns out to be lackluster. Frankly the bad guys here seem very derivative of the Arkham games to me so I'm seeing a double standard here were it's fine for Tynion to use a derivative but "poo poo on King for using Superman derivatives" in his story.

I'm going to have to agree that king has done a great job with Grayson. but he is working with a single, well established character and the demans from the book are different. So if we are weighting who has done a better job so far according to what was expected, then Tec has been a more enjoyable read.

I'm not sure the demands are significantly different between the two although I'll agree the expectations of the fans would be and that between the two Batman is the bigger character (although I feel the two should be on equal footing given their long histories.) The thing is I was looking at these two books not only from the perspective of what I was personally wanting out of them (your what was expected) but also from the perspective of what I was expecting from the writers themselves based on their past work I had read. From both perspectives I found Tynion's first issue to be lacking for various reasons and not something I want to continue to read. You obviously felt the opposite and that's perfectly fine. Not every book is for everyone nor should they be.

[Lhynn]

It's funny that you say that because I personally feel that is also and especially the case for solo books. A solo that doesn't really go into it's main protagonist is not worth a damn. At least that's how I feel and which is why I generally prefer solos over team-based "big, epic and grandiose " stories.

Solo books can afford to do both easily. Team books not so much.

[Lhynn]

I also disagree with you on the issue of even if the characters stagnate its okay so long as the story is good. In my opinion character stagnation is NEVER a good thing and it just brings a good story down. The thing I don't want to see happen is that Tynion gets so caught up in the team dynamics because that's what people are praising that he let's the overall plot of the arc suffer or that the plot here turns out to be lackluster. Frankly the bad guys here seem very derivative of the Arkham games to me so I'm seeing a double standard here were it's fine for Tynion to use a derivative but "poo poo on King for using Superman derivatives" in his story.

Character stagnation is neither a good nor a bad thing, and its never forever, something always shakes the character up sooner or later. For example i would have preferred to have the exact same tim we were left with than the new 52 reworked tim. Temporary stagnation is always preferable to incompetent writing. Sides, with a character driven team book its very hard for the characters to stagnate, too many variables there, too many new relationships, too many situations for that to ever happen.

I'm not sure the demands are significantly different between the two although I'll agree the expectations of the fans would be and that between the two Batman is the bigger character (although I feel the two should be on equal footing given their long histories.) The thing is I was looking at these two books not only from the perspective of what I was personally wanting out of them (your what was expected) but also from the perspective of what I was expecting from the writers themselves based on their past work I had read. From both perspectives I found Tynion's first issue to be lacking for various reasons and not something I want to continue to read. You obviously felt the opposite and that's perfectly fine. Not every book is for everyone nor should they be.

Dont understand the people criticizing king either, but Tec has been the more interesting book so far. You dont seem to think so? fine by me. But practically calling Tynion shallow and vapid (im aware those were not the words you used, but im not as diplomatic as you are) seems more like a knee jerk reaction.

[JasonTodd428]

Temporary stagnation is always preferable to incompetent writing.

I find that character stagnation is often a sign that the writer in question simply doesn't have a clue what to do with the character or characters he's been handed. In some cases it can even be a sign of incompetent writing. Either way I don't see it as a good thing even if it is temporary as I like characters that evolve over time rather than ones that don't. I find the latter to be boring.

Dont understand the people criticizing king either, but Tec has been the more interesting book so far. You dont seem to think so? fine by me. But practically calling Tynion shallow and vapid (im aware those were not the words you used, but im not as diplomatic as you are) seems more like a knee jerk reaction.

It's not a kneejerk reaction on my part though. I simply have never cared for the bulk of his work and I've read just about all of his DC work. To me he's had far more misses than hits. I gave the first issue of his 'Tec run an honest go and didn't care for it so I'm going to quit now before I spend a bunch of money in another attempt at hoping it will somehow magically become a book I'll enjoy. I've already played that game before with some N52 books and not to put to fine a point on it I don't want to play it again. There are a lot of other books I'd much rather spend my time and money on.

[Godlike13]

What are some of you guys talking about, team books need plot. Its important. They can focus on the characters all they want but if these characters aren't really doing anything interesting, and aren't challenged in interesting ways, i don't care how good the characterization and character focus is, things are gonna get boring real fast. I get Tim hasn't been written well in a long time, and its cool that Steph and Cass are around, but that doesn't mean we just excuse story and plot. Look at B&R:E. Ya the characterizations were good (some of them at least), and there was character focus, but its plot and villain were so weak and cliche that it became a chore to get through.

[Caivu]

What are some of you guys talking about, team books need plot. Its important. They can focus on the characters all they want but if these characters aren't really doing anything interesting, and aren't challenged in interesting ways, i don't care how good the characterization and character focus is, things are gonna get boring real fast. I get Tim hasn't been written well in a long time, and its cool that Steph and Cass are around, but that doesn't mean we just excuse story and plot. Look at B&R:E. Ya the characterizations were good (some of them at least), and there was character focus, but its plot and villain were so weak and cliche that it became a chore to get through.

Plot is important in these types of books. Just not as important. The plot can afford to be a bit shakey so long as the characters stay good.

[JasonTodd428]

What are some of you guys talking about, team books need plot. Its important. They can focus on the characters all they want but if these characters aren't really doing anything interesting, and aren't challenged in interesting ways, i don't care how good the characterization and character focus is, things are gonna get boring real fast. I get Tim hasn't been written well in a long time, and its cool that Steph and Cass are around, but that doesn't mean we just excuse story and plot. Look at B&R:E. Ya the characterizations were good (some of them at least), and there was character focus, but its plot and villain were so weak and cliche that it became a chore to get through.

I agree. A title having good characterization and character focus is all well and good but there should also be a solid plot and story to go along with that. Tynion seems to have a handle on the characters but in recent times he's been lackluster when it comes to plot and story. I see the same issues I've had with his work in the past cropping up in 'Tec now and that's just a huge turn off to me.